Huawei’s 2021 revenue declines thrust Ericsson to the top of the radio access network (RAN) market, according to LightCounting. This marks the second time an industry research firm reached that conclusion in the last month.

“In this environment divided in two spheres of influence, China versus the West and its allies, both Ericsson and Nokia gained market share at the expense of Huawei and ZTE in the fourth quarter of 2021,” Stéphane Téral, chief analyst at LightCounting, wrote in a new report.

“For the full year, Ericsson finished neck and neck with Huawei with just one percentage point separating the two vendors,” he added, attributing roughly 26% global market shares to each of the vendors.

Both LightCounting and Dell’Oro Group note the growth rate of the global RAN market slowed during Q4, sliding from double-digit growth rates during the previous six quarters to single-digit growth during the final months of the year.

“We did expect the growth rate to come down in Q4 so this was not a surprise, reflecting more challenging comparisons in both China and North America. But the pace of the slowdown was perhaps a bit more than we had initially modeled,” Stefan Pongratz, VP at Dell’Oro Group, wrote in response to questions.

Despite the slowdown, he added: “RAN prospects remain healthy and the overall RAN market is on track to record a fifth consecutive year of growth in 2022.”

Dell’Oro Group, which hasn’t yet officially named Ericsson as the global RAN leader, estimates worldwide RAN revenues hit a range of $40 billion to $45 billion in 2021. It expects total RAN revenues to grow 5% in 2022.

“In general, we see that Samsung and Ericsson are gaining share outside of China. In addition to Ericsson’s leadership position in the North America region, the vendor also recorded significant share gains in Europe. Ericsson is now the No. 1 player in Europe, up from No. 2 in 2020,” Pongratz explained. 

On the global stage, Dell’Oro Group ranks Huawei, Ericsson, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung as the top five RAN vendors, in that order. LightCounting places Ericsson in the top spot, followed by Huawei, Nokia, ZTE, and Samsung. Huawei and ZTE remain the indisputable market leaders in China.

Dell’Oro Group also concluded its full-year snapshot of the mobile core network, noting that total revenue growth slowed to the lowest rate since 2017. Mobile core networks, which support 5G standalone (SA) cores, were in particularly short demand during Q4 2021, according to the analyst firm.

Growth rates are expected to climb in 2022 as 21 existing 5G SA operators expand and additional operators prepare to deploy 5G cores, according to Dave Bolan, research director at Dell’Oro Group. The firm previously counted 19 5G SA networks at the end of January, but missed two Thailand operators that deployed 5G cores in 2020, so the global total now stands at 21.

“Of the 21 5G SA networks commercially deployed, Huawei is the packet core vendor in seven of the networks, including the three largest networks in the world located in China,” he wrote. “Ericsson is the packet core vendor in 10 of the networks. Not surprisingly, of the top five vendors, only Huawei and Ericsson gained overall mobile core network revenue market share during 2021.”

Huawei commanded 30% to 35% of all revenue in the global market for mobile core networks in 2021, earning the top spot, according to Dell’Oro Group. Ericsson came in No. 2 with a market share of 20% to 25%, followed by Nokia with a 10% to 15% share, ZTE with 5% to 10%, and Mavenir with 1% to 5%.